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He I Emission In The Orion Nebula And Implications For Primordial Helium Abundance, R. L. Porter, Gary J. Ferland, K. B. Macadam

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We apply a recently developed theoretical model of helium emission to observations of both the Orion Nebula and a sample of extragalactic H II regions. In the Orion analysis, we eliminate some weak and blended lines and compare theory and observation for our reduced line list. With our best theoretical model we find an average difference between theoretical and observed intensities (I_pred/I_obs-1)=6.5%. We argue that both the red and blue ends of the spectrum may have been inadequately corrected for reddening. For the 22 highest quality lines, with 3499 Å≤λ≤6678 Å, our best model …